The Early Caller | Writers Lodge

My family’s only source of income was from the sale of fish which father caught in the big waters. Fishing had not been so lucrative of late because most of the rivers around my village had been polluted by the oil from the white man’s big oil company which had led to the death of most of the fishes and the migration of others deep into the big waters where father’s small fishing canoe could not safely get to. That was the explanation I had heard father give time and again for his dwindling harvest. I had neither seen the white man’s oil company some of which I heard are located deep underneath the big waters, nor did I understand what oil was doing below there. The only oil I knew was the red fluid mother added to her pot of soup whenever we were privileged to cook soup and it never ceased to amaze me just how much pain the white man was taking just to get this oil and how his quest was causing my family so much pain too.
Once, I had over heard father discussing with two of his close friends, Bassey and Okon, both fishermen. They talked about how the white man’s oil had leaked out of one of his big metallic boats that were as big as a hundred huts put together and spilled into the whole river, changing the colour and making the surface of the river as thick as pap such that paddling a canoe on the river became impossible. This they said made much of the fishes in the river to die within days and were, seen floating on the river surface decayed and useless. It took almost a whole year before that river became suitable for fishing again.
As I made my way this morning to the village stream through the narrow footpaths lined by tiny grasses which moistened my legs as I walked, I thought about Obong Attah’s latest threat. The last time he threatened to take me away to his old mother, father had struck some luck and had off set his debts. This time, I didn’t know what to wish for. I could remember father swearing never again to take any more loans from Obong Attah since he had insulted him so much as to having the effrontery to threaten him of dispossessing him of me, but not too long after he was compelled once more to do same. Ekpo my little brother had fallen very ill. It had all started like the normal fever children his age were known for. Mother had administered the concussion grand mother prepared from tree leaves and bark. For reasons I cannot explain, the usually efficacious preparation which I had taken a whole lot of times failed to improve the situation. Ekpo went from bad to worse, crying on end and refusing to eat anything, not even fried dodo which he usually had great love for.
Soon he was vomiting and stooling. His stool was fetid and watery. Mother who had now gotten hysterical spent all the money she had saved on drug tablets from the little chemist at the village square. It was me who had always gone to buy those slender tablets with two different colours which felt soft to touch as though it was water that was inside them. I always really felt it was just water inside them.
Despite all the assurances of Doctor Emeka, the coloured tablets failed to set Ekpo free. Doctor Emeka was not actually a doctor in the true sense of the word. He ran the little chemist at the village square for Obong Attah and often took the liberty of prescribing drugs and giving injections to the sick in my village and surrounding hamlets. He was famous and had over the years acquired the title of doctor which found legitimacy in the strongly held opinion among the villagers that he was as good as any real doctor any where. This time around however, he didn’t quite get it right and we had to go in search of a real doctor.
That Ekpo did not die was something of a miracle to me and was one thing I always thanked God about silently when I whisper few words of prayer everyday before bed. He was bundled off to the hospital in Uyo aboard Long jorni and after nearly three weeks of living there, he came back well, fully recovered like he had never been sick at all. I remembered that scary sight he presented the night before he was rushed to Uyo which had made me shed hot tears; weak, pale, skinny and with his eyes sunken deep into their sockets. You could make out every one of his ribs and the temperature of his body was enough to roast a pear. His whole body shivered, like one’s body would when bathing with cold water on a cold morning deep in the rainy season. He was a pitiful sight and no sane father would have sat back and watched his son fade way like that, so out of desperation, father much against his earlier vow rushed off to Obong Attah for a loan. It was that loan which had been used to pay Ekpo’s bills at the hospital in Uyo that Obong Attah had come this morning to get. Life for me had always been a disjointed patch of hopes. I lived basically on the pleasant fantasies of my childish imaginations. In those fantasies, I saw myself as some educated lady in the city with a job and a big car.
Those thoughts provided me with succour and I really hoped on it coming to pass someday. And all through this day that Obong Attah came for his money, all I did was hope that some thing good might happen, that father would hit some luck like he did the last time. I returned home in the evening to the sad reality. Father was having a heated discussion with mother in the main compound just outside his hut when I walked in exhausted from the day’s hawking. Father obviously had just returned from his fishing expedition and mother had just told him about Obong Attah’s call earlier in the day. Father, who from all indications had had a bad day given the near empty basket of fish lying just at the door of his hut, seemed infuriated by the story and was pacing about the compound fuming. Silently, I slipped into my hut, the sole of my feet hurting from the trek around the village, my eyes welling up with tears.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo 08063767306

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